Linda Perlstein’s Tested is a chronicle of a year in the life of a Title I elementary school in Annapolis, Maryland. I’ve heard a lot of grumbling about No Child Left Behind (NCLB) from teacher friends. I admit it. I expected this book to be about grumpy teachers. But it isn’t. I came to admire the principal and teachers the more I read. They are a hard-working professional bunch with a daunting challenge. How does one teach kids who come from broken homes in very poor neighborhoods with parents who are often indifferent to learning and sometimes neglectful and abusive?

The book opens with Tyler Heights scoring phenomenally and unexpectedly well in the Maryland School Assessment (MSA). Principal Tina McKnight is thrilled and very proud of her staff and students. The whole school rejoices but the question faces them… was this a fluke? The celebration is short-lived as they turn their attention to preparing for next year’s exams. Tested takes the reader through the day-to-day challenges and personal lives of staff and students as they work toward the MSA.

The curriculum, lesson plans and classroom scheduling are standardized for the entire county. An observer should be able to go into any third-grade classroom in the county and see the same thing. A common issue with teachers was the lack of flexibility and creativity allowed in the classroom. Every aspect, the lesson plans, bulletin boards, vocabulary words, is scripted. I can be somewhat sympathetic with their complaint. Serendipity is one of the fun things about homeschooling; temporarily ditching the plan when something far more interesting crosses our path. There is no time or space for serendipity in Tyler’s tightly scheduled lessons.

It seems that these teachers are reaping what the generation before them sowed. The situation schools were in before NCLB was described by Terrell Bell in his 1983 book A Nation at Risk. Perlstein writes:

…many teachers had the freedom to teach whatever they wanted which too often was not much.

Dr. Eric Smith is the superstar superintendent who came to Anne Arundel County Schools from North Carolina where he had very successfully implemented ambitious standards-based reforms. He told Perlstein:

teachers need a standard, structured platform laying out the basics before they apply their artistry…having no direction is a curse–particularly for rookies.

This is often the opposite of methods taught to prospective teachers in college. They are trained to improvise and use creative methods to present lessons. For Tyler’s teachers this was most frustrating and I can say that there are quite a few teachers in Anchorage schools who have this same perspective. Yet, Ithink that this part of NLCB is critical. To have objectives and standards for learning is key.

This brought to mind my own experience growing up in a rural Ohio school district. In 8th grade, I remember an entire quarter spent on urban renewal in Akron and it wasn’t from an objective viewpoint. Or how about the short stories in English class that were used for values clarification? Or how about writing an essay on why I should be the only one saved from a sinking ship letting my companions die? Sadly, there are plenty more lessons I still remember that served to do little more than waste valuable class time and embarrass students.

So, where is the happy medium? Limiting teachers’ creativity and spontaneity will cause them to look to other ways to earn a living. But we cannot allow them to teach what they want with no objective standards. That would bring us back to more fads that fail.

Tested is a book I highly recommend to any one interested in how NCLB affects schools and teachers on a day-to-day basis. It’s an interesting and easy read.

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